■LONDON
Sehwag injures ankle
India opening batsman Virender Sehwag has been ruled out of the one-day series against Sri Lanka after injuring his ankle in training. India’s leading batsman in the test series, Sehwag twisted his ankle in training on Sunday and missed the opener of the five-match series in Dambulla, Sri Lanka, a day later, a contest India lost by eight wickets. Sehwag will return home and a decision on whether to send out a replacement has yet to be made.
■CRICKET
Rain ruins Edinburgh ODI
Rain ruined the first competitive one-day international between Scotland and England in Edinburgh on Monday. England, chasing 157 to win, were 10 without loss when the weather intervened for the last time. Earlier, rain reduced Scotland’s innings from 50 to 44 overs and the hosts chalked up 156 for nine with opener Gavin Hamilton scoring 60. Hamilton helped Scotland recover from 11 for three after recalled seamer Tim Bresnan had removed Kyle Coetzer and Navdeep Poonia for ducks. Andrew Flintoff eventually had Hamilton caught behind by Matt Prior, one of three wickets for the England all-rounder.
■RUGBY UNION
Habana ruled out of Test
A hamstring injury has ruled star South Africa wing Bryan Habana out of a Tri-Nations Test against Australia in Durban, South Africa, on Saturday. Habana, voted International Rugby Board Player of the Year after helping the Springboks win the World Cup last year, retired injured during a 19-0 defeat by New Zealand last Saturday in the southern hemisphere championship. Defending champions New Zealand top the standings with 14 points from five matches followed by the Wallabies (nine from three) and South Africa (five from four).
■SOCCER
Adebayor signs new deal
Arsenal striker Emmanuel Adebayor has signed an improved deal with the club tying him to the Gunners until 2012, an official statement said on Monday. Togo international Adebayor scored 30 goals last season, but was persistently linked with AC Milan and Barcelona during the summer. However, a statement on the club’s official Web site said that “Arsenal can today confirm that Togolese forward Emmanuel Adebayor has signed a new long-term contract with the club.” The 24-year-old Adebayor, whom Arsenal signed from Monaco in January 2006, said on the eve of the new season he would be staying put after agreeing terms on a new improved deal worth a reported £80,000 (US$155,000) a week. “We have to get behind him and support him because he is a tremendous force and [he is of] tremendous importance for the team — you want your own fans to be behind him,” coach Arsene Wenger said. “What happened in the transfer period did not always reflect his deep desire and there was manipulation from agents on both sides, but overall I am positive he will recover.”
■SOCCER
Arena to coach Galaxy
Bruce Arena, the all-time most winning coach for the US national team, was named the new head coach and general manager of the Los Angeles Galaxy on Monday. Arena’s hiring comes a week after a general manager Alexi Lalas was fired and coach Ruud Gullit resigned from the struggling Major League Soccer club. Lalas, a former member of the American World Cup team, was dismissed after failing to lead the team to the playoffs the last two years.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier